Checkmate, my Dear
by Erhothwen
Summary: In a routinely chess game between Draco and his father, it is usually Lucius giving the advice. But on this special night, it is Draco's order that has its final say and Lucius finishes a more important game of chess with someone else. LuciusNarcissa.


Checkmate, my Dear By Erhothwen Disclaimer: She's the queen, I am not.  
  
It was a Sunday night like any other Sunday night at the Malfoy Manor. At a small, well-furnished table adjacent from the warm fireplace in the parlor sat Lucius Malfoy and across from him, his son Draco. Between them was an elegant and posh marble wizard chess board, each of its game pieces carved to the tiniest detail and plated with strands of thin silver. It truly was a stunning and magnificent sight.  
  
Draco sat straight-backed and formally stiff, staring thoughtfully at the luxurious chess board in stony silence, perplexed as he pondered the solution to his game predicament. Lucius' piercing and calculating gaze never left his son.  
  
"Stupid boy, you are wasting my time!" he spat disdainfully. If it was one thing Lucius had learned—money could buy you anything important except a good head on your shoulders.  
  
Draco's head snapped up and his stormy grey eyes held a hint of fiery challenge, though it lasted for only a fleeting moment. He then gave his father an apologetic look, causing Lucius to cease his icy impression. And for that split second, their relationship was father and son, not mentor and student—just like it should have been in the first place.  
  
Lucius' eyes narrowed down and said to his son, "Don't be sorry; be good."  
  
Draco nodded with the slight inclination of his head, inwardly repeating to himself "Don't be sorry; be good." His father's words were not heeded unkindly—Draco always did find that his father gave the most preeminent advice.  
  
"Father," Draco started hesitantly, but before he could get a word in edgewise, Lucius interrupted him upon hearing the uncertainty in Draco's voice.  
  
"Hesitation is fear, to fear is to be weak, and the weak die beneath the supreme. Remember that, Draco."  
  
"Yes, sir."  
  
"Now tell me what you have to say."  
  
This time, Draco spoke with more confidence, though it was steadily decreasing under his father's hard and watchful eyes, eyes that could see fear, eyes that see weakness, eyes that could burn like cold fire—penetrating your very soul and leaving you a blithering mess. Draco wanted eyes like his father badly as he thought of the reign of terror he could at Hogwarts with spiteful glares like that.  
  
"This game is over," Draco drawled simply.  
  
With that, he brushed aside all the pieces in a sense of finality.  
  
Lucius raised a pale eyebrow questioningly at him.  
  
"Sour at the thought of losing? Oh, yes, I remember now. Never were quite content at being bested by Potter and his Mudblood girlfriend were you?"  
  
Draco wanted to shoot back a snide remark about how stupid, bloody Potter was Dumbledore's favorite, how all the professors just adored Granger—but caught himself, remembering that there were a more important issue at hand. And he could always provoke Potty and his lapdogs once Hogwarts dreadfully opened up again in September.  
  
"No, but..." Draco's assertiveness dropped down a notch, but he hid it well behind an emotionless mask.  
  
"Tonight is not meant for you and I, Father. You have another game of chess to finish."  
  
Lucius was silent.  
  
"Go."  
  
Lucius stood up suddenly, quick as a flash and knocking his chair over violently. Seething through barred teeth, Lucius spoke haughtily, "You, a mere child by my standard, ordering ME what to do? Have I not taught you better? Or is this the work of Hogwarts and that blasted fool, Albus? If it weren't for your mother and I had it my way, you'd be shipped off to attend Durmstrang!"  
  
Draco stared up at his father, cool and guarded, almost bored. This unnerved Lucius, perhaps because it reminded him of himself when he was Draco's age. And no matter what, his son was no 'mere child'; he was his son, his blood.  
  
"She told you," Lucius stated, rather than asked.  
  
Draco responded to this carefully, "She told me that she's waiting, that she waits every year but it's always the same."  
  
"I know, don't think I don't. The neglect is on both are parts though. She is as distant from me as I am of her. Love is idle Draco; it appears and vanishes in a heartbeat. The heart is fickle; it is only the craft of the mind that gives you true and ultimate power. To love is to lose."  
  
"That is almost exactly what she said. 'To love is to lose.'"  
  
Lucius leaned across the table so that he was almost nose to nose with Draco. And Draco saw something in his father's eyes, something different. He had never seen it before, never in his entire lifetime.  
  
"Do not partake in matters that do not concern you," said Lucius quietly.  
  
Lucius straightened up, walking around the fallen chair before leaving the parlor swiftly and with no other words. He left Draco there, sitting in his regal position—and Draco said nothing, thinking of what his father had said.  
  
'Because to love is to lose, to lose is to show weakness, and it is the weak that cry the longest,' Draco thought in his head, almost monotonically.  
  
The phrase would have made his father proud, he decided.  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Narcissa Malfoy was lying flat on her stomach in the courtyard, her shoes kicked off and her porcelain face blank, cold...distant. It was strange for her to be is such a carefree position—prim and proper was what her reputation deemed her. 'And the arrogance of a true Black,' Lucius had once told her. And she had teased back, 'But no arrogance could ever match that of a Malfoy.' But those words were spoken so long ago that she had almost forgotten them. Almost.  
  
Lucius treaded softly on the warm summer grass toward his wife and if Narcissa ever noticed, she showed no indication as she laid in silent reverie, frozen in a sphinx-like manner.  
  
And it was then that Lucius Malfoy did a remarkable thing. He came gracefully down, lied on his stomach not unlike Narcissa, and kicked his shoes off to mimic her. They both made a mental note of each other's presence, though nothing was said, nor did they turn their heads to even look at each other—as if the very idea was scandalous.  
  
They both glanced up, almost in unison, at the sky—a full moon lit the way, but there were no stars to be found.  
  
Memories lazily strolled in their minds. Memories of staring at each other in the library and feigning innocence, memories of kissing for the first time under the mistletoe, memories of sneaking off to the Astronomy Tower and dancing to nothing but the music of their heartbeats, memories of sharing a the same warm mug of butterbeer because one would 'forget to bring enough money', memories of defending each other against eleven year old Sirius' mockery, memories of lying in the summer grass under a moonlit, yet starless sky the night before school ended to talk about what they would do over their summer break.  
  
They thought they were in love. And through the power that corrupted them, through their allegiance with the Dark Lord, through their lust for glory—they still wanted to believe that they loved each other, though it contradicted what they said.  
  
Draco always did wonder if his parents loved each other. They were rather distant, showing little display of affection or emotion for each other—surely they fell out of love. But Draco thought wrongly.  
  
Lucius recalled the first time he came across Narcissa—it was in the Slytherin common room and she appeared to be quite bored. So they played a game of wizard chess, but left the game unfinished and forgotten as time rolled by.  
  
Lucius slipped his hand into Narcissa's and they leaned into each other, inhaling each other's scents: Narcissa's of faint lilac, Lucius' of musky spice.  
  
They stayed that way for a long time, hand in hand, leaning against each other in the summer grass beneath the moonlit, starless sky like they had done all those years ago.  
  
And though no spoken acknowledgement was made, none like all the unacknowledged wedding anniversaries year after year before making this one hardly different—it took until just then for them to realize that no words were needed.  
  
Checkmate, my dear. 


End file.
